“This is the story I was told, the way my cousin told me when her best friend moved to Australia because she was so terrified after this experience. This is a real story. So, there’s this girl and it’s her prom night, but it’s on the same night she has a lacrosse game, so before the game she has to set up all her stuff for the dance in the locker room because she doesn’t have time to go home and get ready. So she has to get ready in the locker room and go early to help set up for the dance. So she wins her lacrosse game and she goes into the locker room to start getting ready and she had set up her curlers and dress and so she walks into the dark locker room. For some reason, her curling iron light is on, and the red light is illuminating the dark room. She was so confused as to why the curler was on and why it was pitch black except that one light. And she thought, “Wow this could have set the place on fire, why is this on?” But she is ready to curl her hair anyway. All the sudden she hears this voice, and it says, “Don’t touch it.” Startled, the girl says, “Hello? Is anyone in here?” She tries for the light switch but it doesn’t work, but the power clearly isn’t out because her curling iron is working. So she follows the light of her curling iron and in the dim light, she sees the shape of a girl, wearing a sparkly prom dress and it’s lightly illuminating her face. So she says, “Oh hi, you scared me, did you turn my curling iron on?” The voice responds, “Don’t touch it. It’s hot. It’ll burn you.” And the girl responds, “Oh, I know…Thank you..” Then the light starts to move away from her and she says, “Oh that’s mine, please don’t touch it, I need to use it. Have you just been in here in the dark..?” And the voice repeats, “It’s hot. It’ll burn you. Burn you.” And the girl responds, “Umm okay, sorry I need to get ready now.” And she runs and grabs her dress and throws it on. Then the light of the curling iron goes off. And now there is no illumination in the room whatsoever. So she is freaking out and says, “Okay.. I’m leaving now..” and she narrates her thoughts as she walks out of the locker room. She finishes getting ready in a different bathroom and is really shaken up by the whole experience. She didn’t know why the girl was there, but since she had been wearing a prom dress, she figured she was going to prom as well. So anyway, she goes to prom and the next day she comes to school and is telling her friends about the weird experience she had that night and what happened. She picks up a school newspaper and at the bottom of the paper, there is a commemoration saying “In Memory of Beth James, who was killed on the night of prom in a fire on campus.” And she drops the newspaper and starts screaming and crying because she sees the picture and realizes it’s the girl she saw the night before. It was the same face that had been illuminated by the red light. The reason why she kept warning, it’ll burn you, it’s hot, don’t touch it, is because she had died in an electrical fire in the old gym 20 years prior. The girl was so traumatized, she moved to escape from the memory of what had happened. The End.”

This story exemplifies many common motifs found in ghost stories. The dark locker room creates a mysterious, eerie setting. The red light creates even more of a spooky atmosphere by casting a dim light on everything. The repetition of phrases by the ghost also adds to the terror of the girl. I think this ghost story perfectly captures an event that seems very strange in itself, which is then concluded by proof that the event was truly ghostly.

“My cousin’s friend, Daniel, was asked to house sit a new house while his friend’s family moved their belongings into the house. As the family drove down the coast, Daniel went to the house and it was very empty. Only a few boxes and furniture and an old piano were in the front room. He went upstairs and most of the bedrooms were empty except there was a small woven red ball in one of the empty rooms. He went over and as soon as he picked it up, he heard a women screaming. So he put it down, and as soon as he did, the screaming stopped. He went downstairs to the basement where there was a couch set up. As he stayed down there, he heard footsteps throughout the house and faint piano playing. He went upstairs to find no one had come to the house. In the kitchen, he opened the new refrigerator and suddenly felt someone watching him. He shut the refrigerator and in the reflection he saw a Native American man in full traditional clothing and head dress. He turned around and the man was no longer there. Scared, he returned to one of the furnished bedrooms and tried to sleep. In the middle of the night, he woke up to the feeling of hands tucking him tightly into the blanket all the way up from his legs to the rest of his body. He kept his eyes shut in fear for what he would see. He felt someone pick up his arms and cross them in front of his chest. He didn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning when the family came, Daniel told the family he’d never come back to the house because of what had happened. The family learned that the house had been built on Native American buried grounds and that the tribe traditionally buried their dead by tightly tucking coverings around the body and arms folded flat across the chest.”

This story is a classic example of the problems that arise when disturbing Native American territory. After being forced off their land and treated poorly, the Native Americans have continued to haunt certain areas that they once claimed. The fact that the house was covering burial grounds and not respecting the territory led to the haunting. Some motifs are the footsteps of the ghosts upstairs and the sounds heard. Another is how he saw the reflection of the ghost, but it vanished once he tried to get a proper look. This story exemplifies traditional motifs in ghost stories and the consequences of disturbing Native American territory.